


The Lucas Seduction

by jujubiest



Series: The Lucas Compendium [9]
Category: Forever (TV)
Genre: Blood, Dark Past, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Off-Screen Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-05
Updated: 2015-10-05
Packaged: 2018-04-25 01:04:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4940752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jujubiest/pseuds/jujubiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When had he let his guard down so far as to find his heart bound with barbed wire to this fragile, aging, mortal creature, whose life amounted to little more than a blink in time's eye?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lucas Seduction

_One Year Ago_

Lucas sat with his elbows propped against the sticky bar, staring down his beer and not moping. Definitely not moping.

He had no real reason to mope, he knew. He had a decent apartment...well, an apartment, anyway, and that was no small feat in a city like New York. He had a job that he liked, and it paid the bills. And his boss was...well, he was brilliant. And gorgeous. And frustrating.

Dr. Henry Morgan, the Sherlock Holmes of the coroner's office…if Sherlock Holmes had a faintly Welsh accent, flawless manners, and a ridiculously large collection of scarves. Like the famous literary detective, Dr. Morgan could make a person feel about an inch high simply by talking over their head, but unlike said detective, he never did it intentionally. Which made it impossible to hate him for it.

Lucas wasn't a stupid person. Nor was he nearly as awkward as he knew he came across at work. He just...lost all of his composure when it came to Dr. Morgan. He could see what the man saw and follow his train of thought...but only from a distance. The moment those solemn brown eyes turned toward him, he just froze. Forgot everything he knew about human anatomy, to say nothing of social skills. Hell, he forgot his own  _name._

It was very difficult to convince your boss you weren't completely useless when you either rambled nonsense without stopping or lost the powers of speech entirely every time they asked you anything at all.

So Lucas was having a beer. Alone. And maybe he'd graduate to a shot or two of whiskey later on. Let the moping commence.

"Excuse me," a low, quiet voice said. "Is this seat taken?"

Lucas shrugged without looking up. "You and the endless line of admirers can fight it out among yourselves."

The voice chuckled, and then there was the scrape of the bar stool's legs against the wooden floor as he seated himself to Lucas's left.

"I seem to have intimidated them all away with my rakish good looks and devastating charm," he said. "So you'll have to make do with me."

Lucas tore his eyes from the label on his  _fascinating_ beer bottle to stare at the stranger who was shamelessly hitting on him. And kept staring.

He was...well, he was odd-looking, but arresting; all hard angles, severe hairline, and sharp, thin slashes of mouth and brow and cheekbone. His eyes were wide, nearly black, and heavily lashed--they were easily his most attractive feature. The rest of him was, well…not ugly, but off somehow, in a way that was strangely compelling. Lucas side-eyed his one beer a little worriedly.  _Barely two years out of school, and I'm already a lightweight. That's just great._

The thin mouth was smiling at him but not quite smirking. Lucas glowered.

"Look, uh...sir. I'm not really in the mood tonight. I've had a long day, I've got a whole list of grievances to air to the nice bartender between drink orders...it's just not a very good time."

"Ah," the man said, grin widening. It was unfortunate, the way that grin made his eyes crinkle endearingly at the corners. Unfortunate because Lucas was really in no mood to appreciate it.

"So what if I propose that the bartender and I get equal time, as long as I buy your drinks?"

Lucas blinked. And blinked again. Was this guy seriously trying to pick him up?

"Come on," the man urged gently. "He serves, I buy...we both get a share of your troubles for ours. It's only fair."

Lucas felt a smile coming on in spite of himself. Hard to resist a tall, dark, weirdly eye-catching stranger offering to buy him drinks and attend his pity party. Even if it was obviously an attempt to get into his pants. Lucas allowed himself a put-upon sigh.

"Well...I suppose. Since you've chased off all my other admirers, it's the least you can do."

The cheeky grin widened into a full-blown smile that took the stranger's face from odd to actually quite handsome. Lucas felt his night looking up.

"Fantastic," his new drinking buddy said, and put out his hand to shake. Lucas took it, and felt himself going red under that beetle-black stare.

"I'm Ethan, by the way," the less-of-a-stranger-now said. "Ethan Durant."

* * *

 

_Later That Night_

Lucas groped for the light switch with one hand, his other one busy holding onto Ethan for dear life. His fingers bunched in the material of his jacket--something thick and fussy and collared, like Dr. Morgan would wear--and he struggled to corral his thoughts with Ethan's lips busy moving over his. Did he really think those lips were unattractive an hour ago? He must have been out of his mind. They were fantastic lips. The best lips ever made.

It occurred to Lucas that he might be a little bit drunk.

The light switch refused to be found. He gave up with a small noise of frustration, opting instead to grab the lapels of Ethan's jacket and push them both off the wall, walking unsteadily into the apartment and toward the living room. His intention had been to deposit his guest on the couch and then offer him something to drink, like a civilized host. Apparently, the universe had other ideas, because a foot from the couch he stumbled, spun, and took them both down in a heap on the couch cushions, Ethan landing on top with a muffled _oomph_.

"Sorry," Lucas said, embarrassed. Ethan raised his head, laughing.

"No need to apologize! This is very comfortable."

Lucas felt his face warming up.

"Yes, uhhh...well can I get you anything...something to drink, or--"

"Lucas," Ethan interrupted, sounding amused. "I didn't come upstairs with you because I wanted a _drink_."

He thought as much, but it still made him pause for a moment, open his eyes and really _look_ at the man. Ethan’s face hovered just above his, easy kissing distance, his gaze dark, warm and wanting, but also _searching_. It was a scalpel, that look, slicing and peeling--Lucas felt himself fighting the urge to turn away from it, hide himself from whatever secrets it intended to cut out of him.

"If you just want to talk some more, we can do that," Ethan continued, serious now. "Or I can go, if you want me to."

"No. Stay." Lucas blurted, then grimaced at how horribly desperate he sounded. But his words sent a slow smile spreading across Ethan's wonderful mouth.

"If you insist," he teased, pulling himself gracefully off of Lucas and sitting neatly at the end of the couch. "Now...where were we before we left the bar? Oh yes. You were telling me all about your brilliant boss."

Lucas sat up to look at him. There was a gorgeous man in his living room, propped on the end of his couch, ready to listen to whatever boring thing Lucas had been rambling on about before last call. In the last hour, Ethan had laughed at all of his jokes and understood most of his film references. He'd even seemed to find his job fascinating. Most people found it creepy.

This was no time for caution.  _Carpe Diem, Lucas._ He sat up, closing the space between them once again.

"How about I tell you more about my brilliant boss later," he said. Ethan's small smile widened, a spark in his eye as he correctly read Lucas's tone.

"Later sounds good," he said, winding his arms around Lucas's hips and pulling him down for another kiss.

* * *

_Three Weeks Later_

Twenty-three days.

That's how long it had been since Adam began seeing Lucas Wahl under the guise of Ethan Durant.

Twenty-three days of comic book movies, indie horror, rambling conversations, walks around the city, and dear god all the kissing. Kissing on the cheek, kissing on the forehead, kissing on the mouth. Kissing in the stairwell of Lucas's apartment, kissing on the couch, kissing on the street, kissing him goodbye before leaving, kissing him hello when they met again.

After one got past that initial shyness, Lucas was an affectionate person...and Ethan Durant was the perfect man for Lucas, so of course he let Lucas take the lead and, when he was ready, became affectionate as well. Adam had thought surely this much kissing and touching and curling up together would grow tedious, and quickly.

It didn't.

And therein lay a difficulty which Adam had not foreseen: he actually enjoyed this odd man's company. More and more, actually, the longer he spent time with him. As Lucas grew more comfortable, he grew quieter, more settled. He gained a stillness and surety that Adam suspected were always there, underneath a perpetual nervous veneer intended to preemptively put off the vast majority of people he encountered. A defense mechanism, to hide the pensive, sharp, keenly observant but vastly insecure person underneath.

Those eyes saw everything, including things Adam thought he kept well-hidden. Lucas saw his sadness, his frustrations, his dark moods. He didn't push, or guess, or judge. He just saw. Sometimes he would ask. “Are you okay?" _Ethan_ was always okay, but Lucas seemed to know when he, _Adam_ , was not underneath.

In short, Adam found that he adored Lucas Wahl, and that was a problem. Quite aside from the fact that these particular feelings were so infrequent he'd almost forgotten how to use them, he was not a man who dealt well with contradictions. He was using Lucas to gain information on Henry Morgan, and yet he adored Lucas for his own strange, enthralling self. But people didn't use what they adored; tools were not beloved objects.

Which meant he had to stop one or the other, using him or caring for him. Adam had no inclination to stop the latter. But considering what he suspected of Henry, what he knew of Lucas's connection to him, and their being the reason he approached Lucas in the first place, he wasn't sure there was a way to keep seeing him and _not_ use him, even inadvertently. The temptation to ask about work would always be there, and it was a perfectly natural thing to say to someone you cared about.

He could honor his love for Lucas by leaving him. That was the option that swirled continually in the back of his mind. But every time he saw him again, the words that would end things between them stuck in his throat. It had been too long--centuries--since he had felt this way for someone. Adam may have lost his zest for life, and he well knew his obsession with death was twisted. But he hadn't lost his sense of proportion when it came to the importance of loving someone, of understanding them and being understood.

Lucas seemed to have few people in his life who tried to understand him. They all believed the lie. Not one of them was patient--or trusted--enough to see through it, to be _allowed_ to see. Adam knew he had been given a gift, most probably a small one in Lucas's eyes. In his, it was a vast treasure.

There was only one thing he could do to remove the temptation and keep Lucas at the same time. He would have to move up his timetable. He needed to make first contact with Henry Morgan.

* * *

_One Year Later_

Adam stared sightlessly at the swirl of red in the metal sink. His hands worked on autopilot, scrubbing away at the blood while his mind raced ahead, to the conversation he was about to have. The explanation he would have to give. And whether Lucas would understand.

Of course he wouldn't understand, Adam already knew. But he couldn't quite force himself not to hope that Lucas, who understood so much about him that no one else had ever even seen, would somehow make sense of this as well.

So he worked instead on how to tell the story, on explaining how the things Lucas already knew and the things Adam had kept hidden were not lies, but divided parts of a messy whole.

Usually, Lucas saw on his own. How could Adam make him see now? How could he keep him?

He  _needed_ to keep him.

Adam thought back on all the time they'd spent together, all the mundane little romantic things they'd shared before Lucas had found out about Adam's immortality. All the equally mundane, but heavier, moments they'd shared since, curled up in a bed that now smelled perpetually of the Hudson river, no matter how often Lucas changed the sheets.

 _When did I fall in love?_ He thought bemusedly. When had he let his guard down so far as to find his heart bound with barbed wire to this fragile, aging, mortal creature, whose life amounted to little more than a blink in time's eye? He'd set out to seduce Lucas into telling him about Henry Morgan, and somehow ended up the one seduced into spilling all his secrets.

Even this one, the one he never meant to tell. The blood on his hands, the sheer volume of it.

He sighed. His hands were clean, or appeared so for now. He let the hot water run over them a bit longer, the skin turning an angry red, the burn quelling his anxiety. He closed his eyes, breathed in. Out.

The water shut off. He opened his eyes to find Lucas beside him, looking at him—specifically, at his hands. Gently, Lucas lifted them from the sink, examining the reddened skin. He took a clean dishtowel from the drawer and patted them dry carefully.

"I wish you wouldn't hurt yourself," he said, sounding resigned. Then he released them, turned, and walked toward the bedroom.

Left alone, Adam wasn't sure what to do with himself. If Lucas wanted him to leave, he would have said so.

Quietly, he followed the route of Lucas's departure into the darkened bedroom. Lucas was curled up under the blanket, on his side, facing away from Adam but toward the spot that he usually occupied. Adam slipped off his shoes and crossed to his side of the bed, slipped underneath the blanket. He didn't reach out, or offer to touch. He just looked at Lucas, who looked back at him for a moment before rolling over and reaching back to take Adam's wrist and pull him close.

Adam curled against his spine, wrapped an arm around his shoulders and buried his face in Lucas's hair, breathing him in but not daring to breathe a sigh of relief just yet. There was an ache at the core of him, a dread that told him he might never have this again, not due to death or time or distance, but due to Lucas's own choice.

He closed his eyes and tried to pull the silence of the room into the chaos of his anxious mind.

It was several minutes before Lucas spoke, and when he did, it was a question.

"Why did you kill that man?"

This one was easy. The man had something he needed. Information that he needed to know Henry wouldn't come along and gather later. He tells Lucas about it woodenly, trying not to listen to the change in his breathing, feel the tension growing in the body pressed against him.

When he finished, it was silent for an interminable amount of time. Then:

"Was he the first man you've killed?"

“No. There have been many.”

"How many?"

"I haven't kept the number." It was true; he hadn't. Some were killed in acts of war. Some were deaths he could have prevented, but didn't. Still others were collateral damage in his efforts to die, and then his quest to be known by someone like himself. A few were his own individual handiwork, dragged from life by his hands and his will, for no other purpose but the one he assigned. He told Lucas this, all of it, then waited again, in silence, for the next question to come.

"Do you enjoy it?" Something in Lucas’s voice told Adam that this was the most important question, the one Lucas was afraid of the answer to.

"No,” he said honestly. “I truly don't. Death is nearly always inevitable, and sometimes it's necessary. But it is not enjoyable, giving or receiving."

That last silence was the longest one of all.

"Will you stop? Can you?"

Adam exhaled, painfully.

"I can't promise you that I'll stop. You may not have encountered it, but when you live outside nature there is no telling when killing may become necessary."

"To your survival?" Lucas asked bitterly.

"If someone found a way to kill me, I'd let them use it," Adam said simply, and absorbed Lucas's flinch without comment. "But one of the pitfalls of an endless life is endless opportunity for pain and suffering. And there are more people than you'd care to know who would make me suffer in any way they could fathom just for the entertainment of seeing how much I could endure. They would kill me a thousand times over just to see if this method, or that one, might keep me from coming back."

Lucas shuddered in his arms, and Adam tightened his grip without thinking. Instead of pulling away, Lucas twisted toward him, curling around him and pressing his face to Adam's neck.

"Does it bother you that I know?"

Adam froze, confused for a moment. And he dared, yet again, to let himself hope.

"Only if it makes you leave me," he said finally, nakedly honest. Lucas groaned and pressed in even closer, laying an open-mouthed kiss against his shoulder.

"I've always known there was something dark about you, Adam," he said softly. "Maybe it was the darkness that drew me in."

"Oh?" Adam said, the hope rising and bursting in his chest, unable to be contained any longer. There was staying power in the way Lucas held him. He would stay. Adam could feel it.

It felt like falling from the tallest building in the city, only to wake up moments before he hit the ground, safe in his bed.

"'And for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?'" Adam murmured giddily in Lucas’s ear.

"Shakespeare? Nice. Though I think this conversation started a little more Macbeth than Much Ado."

Adam smiled, a smile so wide it hurt his cheeks.

"Stars, hide your fires," he whispered. "Let not light see my black and deep desires."

"That is  _so_ out of contex--mmph." Lucas's admonition was interrupted by a sweet, claiming kiss, and Adam reveled in the way Lucas melted against him and kissed him back.

A year ago he had set out to seduce Lucas Wahl and learn all of Henry Morgan's secrets. But now it was his secrets laid bare before Lucas, his heart being weighed against a feather and found surprisingly light. He was the one who had been seduced, utterly. And he didn't care, because Lucas saw all of him...and somehow, he loved him still.

**Author's Note:**

> Forgive the RIDICULOUS sappiness of that last bit, but Adam is over 2000 years old...I think he's earned a little cliche romance, don't you?
> 
> A few more installments yet to come!


End file.
